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Charles sighed, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose where they'd slipped off slightly. That was his last contract for the day, and he was finally free. Kind of.
One's never really free when it comes to managing Dethklok.
There's always something or other that needs his attention, or the band could be brutally harmed, killed, or God forbid, mildly inconvenienced.
There was no use in slipping out of his work mindset, he'd discovered years ago. There would never be a time when he wasn't needed. He took to basically living out of his office the past couple of months. Eating while he worked, and going off of nothing but short power naps on his office couch. But it was fine. He was fine.
"Charles!" he heard a deep voice bark, jolting him.
"Huh, oh, ah. Hello, Nathan, what can I do for you?"
"Uh, well, I was gonna ask about making the lighting more brutal for our next show, but, uh... were you sleeping just now?"
Was he? The last thing Charles could remember was finally, finally closing his laptop.
"Was I?" Charles asked.
"Uh, your head was on your desk, so uh, sorry if I woke you up."
"Oh. Ah, no problem. We'll see about that lighting."
"Fuck the lighting, Charles. When is the last time you slept?" Nathan asked, in an uncharacteristically sweet tone.
"That's not important, Nathan, I'm fine."
"Bullshit." Nathan growled. "You're coming with me."
Nathan hoisted Charles up over his shoulder like he weighed nothing, and Charles sighed, knowing it was no use. Nathan may not be as ripped as he once was, but he still had significantly more muscle than Charles did. Charles, resigned to his fate, dozed off a bit, only opening his eyes when he felt himself being plopped onto Nathan's gigantic bed with a thud.
"Nathan, this isn't necessary." Charles said, stifling a yawn. But now that he was nestled in a comfortable bed, he knew that realistically, he wasn't going to get back up if he didn't have to.
"How are you gonna do your job if you're too tired? Sleep." Nathan demanded, removing the jacket off of Charles' body before climbing into the bed with him.
Charles sighed, eyes already half-closed, as he felt Nathan gently removing the glasses from his face. As he felt a pair of strong arms around him, his eyes jolted back open.
"Is the cuddling necessary?" Charles asked, face flushed.
"Uh..." Nathan hesitated, just as red. "Gotta make sure you don't escape on me..."
Charles didn't know if Nathan was just making that up to hide a desire to cuddle or if he actually meant it, but fuck it. Nathan's bed was comfortable and his arms were warm, so he decided not to think too hard about it as he dozed off.
"I hads to sees it to believes it." Skwisgaar laughed softly, looking at Charles, sound asleep in Nathan's arms. Curled up and snoring softly, Charles looked like a fucking kitten.
"Yeah, yeah, just be quiet and try not to move around too much." Nathan whispered across the room.
"Wowee, maybe he amn'ts a robots after all." Toki giggled quietly as he climbed onto Nathan's bed.
"Toki, what the hell are you doing?" Pickles asked.
"I wanna snuggles too!" Toki said gleefully, nestling in on Charles' other side, causing their manager to shift and mumble slightly before settling back into his deep sleep.
"Yeah, okay, whatever, just don't wake him up." Nathan growled. "He needs this."
"I'm not schnuggling with you!" Murderface said, almost a bit too loudly. "That'sch fucking gay!"
"No one said you had to, just be fuckin' quiet." Pickles admonished as he found a comfortable spot on Nathan's bed.
Fuck. Everyone else was snuggled up like it was no big deal. He was not about to be left out again.
"Let me in." Murderface demanded, lying across the foot of the bed, his head resting on Skwisgaar's calves. The rough movements of the bassist jostled Charles, who opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of a Dethklok cuddle puddle.
"Goddammit, Murderface!" Nathan shouted.
"What's, ah, going on here?" Charles asked groggily. Without his glasses, he could only barely make out the silhouettes of the other four members of Dethklok. He remembered Nathan being here when he fell asleep, but the rest weren't. Right?
"We's havings a cuddles puddles, goes back to sleeps." Skwisgaar assured him, arm around Toki, lightly spooning the younger guitarist.
Cuddle puddle? That didn't seem right. Not for Dethklok. Maybe if he was more awake he'd have questioned it, but he was back to snoozing in Nathan's arms within a minute. Nathan sighed in relief.
"He's been awake for five days, if any of you wake him up again I swear to God I will fucking--"
"Nate'n. Relax." Pickles whispered. "We're not goin' anywhere, look."
He pointed to Murderface, whose loud snores quickly drowned out Charles' soft ones.
"Might be a good idea to get some rest ourselves while we're here." Pickles suggested. "We've had a long week too, y'know."
"Yeah, uh. Right. Good idea." Nathan agreed, readjusting his grip on Charles, sound asleep in his arms.
"Yeah. Yeah, sleep sounds good." Nathan yawned to himself, dozing off beside their manager.
Nathan woke again when sunlight hit his eyes. Damn cheap blackout curtains. He knew he should've gone for the maximum blackout. Sighing, he sat up as much as he was able to with Charles' still-sleeping head on his chest.
And Charles wasn't the only one still sleeping.
On the other side of Charles lay Toki and Skwisgaar, the blond guitarist lightly spooning the brunette, Toki mumbling softly in his sleep while Skwisgaar snored lightly.
Murderface lay horizontally across the foot of the bed, using Skwisgaar's calves as a pillow, snoring loud enough that the Klokateers could hear it down the hall. Nathan shook his head, amazed that everyone else seemed to sleep through the racket without a problem. Wedged next to him was Pickles, his head and hand resting on Murderface's soft stomach.
Nathan sighed and settled back in for a bit, drifting in and out of sleep until he heard a small groan. Opening his eyes, he saw Toki on Charles' other side, stretching his arms as best he could with Skwisgaar's arms still wrapped around his torso before settling back in with a soft sigh, not wanting to wake his bandmates.
"Toki?" Nathan whispered, making the Norwegian look over at him.
"Hi, Nathans." Toki whispered back chirpily. He was always the earliest riser of Dethklok, usually up and about before anyone else was awake. "Yous up too?"
"Yeah, stupid fucking sunlight." Nathan complained. "But uh, this was kinda nice."
Hearing the soft conversation, the rest of the band began to slowly wake. First Skwisgaar, who immediately removed his hands from Toki upon realizing they'd been spooning, followed by Murderface, who unceremoniously threw Pickles off of his stomach, waking the drummer in turn.
"Ow, dood, what the fuck was that fo--"
"Shh!" Nathan whispered, as Charles stirred slightly on his chest.
"Oh, wow." Pickles whispered. "He's still out, huh?"
"Yeah." Nathan answered. "And we're not waking him up. He'll wake up on his own. He needs to sleep as long as he can."
"Yeah, of courses." Skwisgaar replied, stretching his arms up to the sky as he sat up, sitting crisscross on the bed.
As if on cue, Charles let out a soft snore, confirming that none of the commotion had woken him.
"Aww!" Toki exclaimed. "He ams looks like a little kittys!"
"Yeah, I would've thought he just slept like. A stick or somethin'." Pickles replied. "Just straight on his back, y'know? Didn't take him for a cuddler."
"It ams... cutes." Skwisgaar said. "And we never sees him likes this."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting out of here before thisch gets any gayer." Murderface said, getting out of Nathan's bed, not even trying to be quiet or keep his movement to a minimum.
The rest of the band broke out of their collective glare at him when they heard "Oh, uh. Morning. How long did we, ah, sleep?"
"MURDERFAAAACE!!!"